Hurricane Felix, which has left a trail of flooding, landslides and at least nine deaths in Central America, has been downgraded to a tropical storm.

But there are still fears it could trigger more mudslides in shantytown areas of Honduras.

Eleven people remain missing and some 5,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed since Felix struck Nicaragua's remote Miskito coast as a category five hurricane.

The deaths include a man who drowned when his boat capsized, a woman killed when a tree fell on her house, and a baby girl who was born in a location cut off from medical attention and died shortly afterwards.

Five countries in Central America were on alert for floods. As much as 64cm (25in) of rain was predicted in some remote areas.

In Honduras 27,000 people have been evacuated.

Honduran emergency official Marcos Burgos said today that the worst seemed to have passed.

"We may still have flooding, but we don't think it will be severe," he said.

Nicaragua's government declared its northern Caribbean region a disaster area and was airlifting sheets, mattresses, food, first aid and other help to Puerto Cabezas, a fishing town near where Felix made landfall yesterday with winds reaching 160mph.

Some 15,800 of the area's 60,000 residents remained in 76 makeshift shelters.

Hurricane Henriette to the north has killed at least seven people along Mexico's coast. There were no further deaths, though, as it struck the Los Cabos resorts at the tip of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico.

It remained dangerous with winds reaching 75mph as it moved over open water on track to hit the Mexican mainland later today with winds near Huatabampo, 500 miles south of the Arizona border.

Hurricane warnings were posted from Topolobampo in Sinaloa state north to Bahia Kino. From there Henriette was expected to weaken over Mexico's deserts and dump an inch or two of rain on south-west New Mexico tomorrow.